Mavic Gimbal Twitching, sometimes stop tilting

[Lailert]

I believe there’s a problem with the gimbal on my Mavic Pro. When tilting the gimbal, the gimbal will sometimes stop at about 50 degrees down and I will need to let go of the tilt wheel and pull it again for it to continue. I think this may be a problem with my controller as every time I try to calibrate the controller, the tilt wheel calibration page will complete even when I haven’t touched it. Do I need to replace the controller? Is there anyway to fix it?

Another problem I found much more annoying is the twitching gimbal. While panning, the gimbal will sometimes twitch right really quickly which pretty much ruins the shot. It happens during almost every flight but the twitching varies in intensity from flight to flight. I really need to get this fixed as I ruined multiple shots. Any idea what the problem is?(I did have my DJI’s official ND Filter on and made sure it was in all the way.)

The video was downloaded from the SD card

IMG_0441.MOV

Finally, the gimbal will sometimes reset itself.(Stop recording, and spin around like when you first turn the drone on) and everything will reset. Here’s a clip I was able to record from it.

SpringBoard.mp4

 

[Steady Eddie]

Another problem I found much more annoying is the twitching gimbal. While panning, the gimbal will sometimes twitch right really quickly which pretty much ruins the shot. It happens during almost every flight but the twitching varies in intensity from flight to flight. I really need to get this fixed as I ruined multiple shots. Any idea what the problem is?(I did have my DJI’s official ND Filter on and made sure it was in all the way.)

That's exactly what my Mavic Pro does Lailert! Wish I knew what the problem is. The recorded video is twitchy/jerky when the camera/aircraft is panning. Seems to do it when panning in any direction. It will pan smoothly for a few seconds, then jerk as if a few frames have been skipped, then smooth out again. Really annoying. Can I fix this in the settings somewhere, or is there a camera/gimbal problem? Many of the more expert video shots I have seen on the forum also have minimal but acceptable jerkiness, but mine is so bad that it ruins otherwise decent footage.
I hope someone can help!

 

[Dragonfly]

Remove the filter and see if you still have the same problem.
I suspect it is the xtra weight of filter on motors that is causing the pron your gimbal.
Some gimbal are very highly tuned.

 

[Lailert]

Remove the filter and see if you still have the same problem.
I suspect it is the xtra weight of filter on motors that is causing the pron your gimbal.
Some gimbal are very highly tuned.

Forgot to mention that without the filter the twitching still occurs but less severely(Haven’t experience ones as bad as in the attached clip yet). The tilting and the resetting problem still occurs regularly even without the filter.

But still, this shouldn’t be a problem though because I’m using the official DJI filter and installed them as instructed.

 

[Steady Eddie]

I don't even have a filter attached. Just logged a fault with the local DJI dealer. Waiting for a response. the drone is less than a week old so covered by warranty.

 

[Steady Eddie]

Regarding choppy video footage. After a bit of experimentation and reading I've discovered a couple of important things.
If you are recording video at high resolution (4K), you need a (very) high speed SD card, and also a device that is capable of playback at such resolution to watch your footage. I know this sounds obvious, but it caught me out.
Marginal SD card speed and/or playback device caused the choppy video that I was getting. Maybe the OP of this thread has the same problem.

 

[Lailert]

Regarding choppy video footage. After a bit of experimentation and reading I've discovered a couple of important things.
If you are recording video at high resolution (4K), you need a (very) high speed SD card, and also a device that is capable of playback at such resolution to watch your footage. I know this sounds obvious, but it caught me out.
Marginal SD card speed and/or playback device caused the choppy video that I was getting. Maybe the OP of this thread has the same problem.

I don’t think that’s a problem either as I’m using a Sandisk Extreme as the microSD and I’ve just tested it and it averages 70MB/s sequential write(4K video on Mavic Pro records at about 60Mb/s or 7.5MB/s).

For playback I’m using a PC with an i7-8700k CPU, 16GB of RAM and a GTX1060 driving a 1080p display so I don’t think it’s the problem with the playback. (The video was also choppy even when stream lived while flying)

I’m not wondering if I’ve set up something wrong on the Mavic or wether it’s a hardware failure :/

 

[Steady Eddie]

Hey Lailert,
Looks like I'm still having the choppy video problem. Footage at low resolution ie. 1080p/24fps and lower seems OK, but any higher resolution gives poor footage. Also if I record a vid larger than 1GB or so at higher resolution, it jut wont playback at all. I have a new 64GB SanDisk Extreme PRO SD card with 170/90 read/write speeds, and I'm playing back on an iPad mini 4, which supports 4K video (or so the specs say). Playing back in GO4 app on the iPad from either cache or original gives the same jerky video at anything above 1080 recorded resolution.

I’m not wondering if I’ve set up something wrong on the Mavic or wether it’s a hardware failure

I'm wondering the same thing as you. Have you made any further progress?

 

[Lailert]

I don't even have a filter attached. Just logged a fault with the local DJI dealer. Waiting for a response. the drone is less than a week old so covered by warranty.

The problem doesn’t seems to be with the filter. I’ve tested and it seems to be a problem with the remote controller. The dial for the camera tilt seems to be very sensitive to magnetic field and if you stand too close to magnets they seem to act weirdly. You can also try recalibrating the remote controller, one time it wouldn’t calibrate and failed right when I tries to calibrate the tilt wheel so I moved away from that spot I was sitting it calibrated perfectly might have been some magnetic interference from buildings/structures. The twitching from left to right still occurs though, don’t know if they are related.

 

[classicalle]

I believe there’s a problem with the gimbal on my Mavic Pro. When tilting the gimbal, the gimbal will sometimes stop at about 50 degrees down and I will need to let go of the tilt wheel and pull it again for it to continue. I think this may be a problem with my controller as every time I try to calibrate the controller, the tilt wheel calibration page will complete even when I haven’t touched it. Do I need to replace the controller? Is there anyway to fix it?

Another problem I found much more annoying is the twitching gimbal. While panning, the gimbal will sometimes twitch right really quickly which pretty much ruins the shot. It happens during almost every flight but the twitching varies in intensity from flight to flight. I really need to get this fixed as I ruined multiple shots. Any idea what the problem is?(I did have my DJI’s official ND Filter on and made sure it was in all the way.)

The video was downloaded from the SD card

IMG_0441.MOV

Finally, the gimbal will sometimes reset itself.(Stop recording, and spin around like when you first turn the drone on) and everything will reset. Here’s a clip I was able to record from it.

SpringBoard.mp4

Hey Lailert, I've been having this problem since 2017. A fix is to use the Litchi app. Using the DJI Go 4 app, you can pan WHILE tilting the camera. As the camera stops while you're panning, that is when it twitches. I've sent my Mavic in for repair before hoping it would come back perfect, but I still have the problem, and I get around it with the Litchi app. Hope you get good results from now on.